Darius Alexandrescu

Darius Alexandrescu (1430-1468) was a Wallachian nobleman who fought against the Ottoman Empire alongside Janos Hunyadi, the regent of Hungary and Poland. Alexandrescu fought a series of battles against the Ottomans as well as Wallachian nobles and died at the Siege of Jarm.

Biography
Alexandrescu was born to Wallachian nobleman Adrian Alexandrescu and his wife Traiana Petrescu in 1430 in the city of Bucharest. Darius was trained in combat as a young page at the age of 7, and became a squire under his uncle Vladimir Alexandrescu. In 1446 he started his served his military career after fighting at the Battle of Varna, and in 1451 he fought in the Siege of Belgrade against the Ottoman Empire.

When his father died in 1455 Darius became the new leader of the resistance against the Turkish army. Darius faced an array of threats: he faced Ali Pasha Yetim's Ottoman army in the south, the army of Sultan Mehmet II on the shore, and Vlad Tepes' army in central Wallachia. Darius defeated Yetim at Solranka in 1456 and avoided combat with Mehmet, while fighting against Vlad the Impaler in hopes of proving that he was the leader of the struggle.

In the 1460s Alexandrescu lost the vital stronghold of Bucharest to the Ottoman Empire, and in 1465 he was defeated at the Battle of Kishniev. He decided on a final gambit to take control of the north by besieging Jarm, a Wallachian Rebels city. Darius nearly captured the city but was shot in the neck with a musket and died.